Papillon
by NinjaGiry
Summary: Over a century after the affair of the Scorpion and the Grasshopper, the house on the lake still remains the intact home of a restless spirit. Though he has made every effort to ensure his solitude, everything changes when a young witch discovers him. Now the search for answers is on; Why is he here? How did it happen? And whatever happened to Christine?
1. Chapter 1

It would always be _my_ house.

I had seen it built all those years ago under my careful instruction, and I did not plan on deserting it anytime soon. Here, hidden away from the bustling upper levels of the city, I could think. Here, the music was free to flow from my mind to the paper, undisturbed by screeching divas or chattering ballet girls. The calm darkness that I had used as my architectural canvas eased my mind and blanketed my senses with a feeling of relief after a long day's work at the theatre. While the Palais Garnier was, and always would be, my kingdom, the house on the lake was my castle. It was a sanctuary of solitude hidden away from the Parisian streets.

I never enjoyed having guests, and loathed those that turned up unannounced. Naturally, I was quick to make this much clear when the first few would-be explorers decided to come poking around. I can't remember how long I had been holed up in the lower levels, but it must have been quite some time. I remember a fair amount of dust being thrown into the air upon the arrival of the uncouth visitors, and the spiders had managed to lay their silken traps across several of the unused doorways on the upper level. Having become so used to the complete and utter silence, I was admittedly startled by the sound of the front door giving way under some vicious abuse, and arrived in the foyer to find the two adolescents gawking about in a dumb mixture of awe and disgust.

Of course, I was livid with fury. Never in my life had anyone been so foolish as to intrude upon me in such a manner. I shouted and cursed at them, sending several heavy objects flying their way and sending them fleeing from my presence. Still burning with anger, I watched them disappear into the murky night outside, cursing myself for not setting more traps around the front door.

Why I called it the front door, I honestly had no idea. I hardly used it, and it largely served as a facade to present to the masses; a small above-ground attic that looked very much like any other well-made single-story house on the street. The majority of my dwelling space was underground, made to fit snugly into the catacombs that I frequented far more often than any cobbled street. But while the upper level was, for the most part, unused and empty, it was still _my_ house. And I would not tolerate such intruders.

When I finally had the presence of mind to close the door, I was somewhat surprised by the protesting squeal it gave. I had always been rather meticulous about the condition of the hinges, not wanting to draw any attention on the times when I did venture out onto the streets by announcing my arrival on the surface with a squeaky door. However, upon closer inspection, I could see that the majority of the metal hardware was now tarnished and rusted beyond almost all hope of repair. I gave a small groan as I noticed the thick carpet of dust as well. Sensing the beginnings of a headache, I reached back to loosen the ties of my mask, but found to my horror that it was not in place.

How could I have been so careless? How could I have forgotten?

No wonder they had been so quick to run.

As I turned to return to the blessed seclusion of the lower levels, I noticed a beam of yellowish light slicing through the dust that carpeted the hardwood floor. One of the boys had dropped his lantern, and I instinctively snatched it up for fear of a fire starting. However, upon closer inspection, I found that there was no flame inside it at all.

It was an odd thing, long and cylindrical with a (now slightly cracked) panel of glass fixed on the end to direct the beam of light, which seemed to emit from a small glass sphere. It seemed to be a refined and miniature version of the incandescent bulbs attributed to inventors like Edison. I turned the device over in my hands as I made my way down the dark hallway that led to the wine cellar, already picking out the seams and screws that would need to be loosened in order for me to examine it more thoroughly. It was an ingenious little invention, that much was certain. In the dark, I squinted at the words inscribed along the base of the cylinder.

_"Patent No. 617,592 Copyright 1911"_

I paused again at that, barely a half-step away from the door to the cellar which would lead me back down to my study, with an expression of mild bewilderment that might have appeared comical had I more comely features. That simply couldn't be right. There was no way I could have been down there for so long. As was usual in my long bouts of composing, I hadn't eaten since I'd shut myself away. I hadn't slept. If I'd managed to survive such conditions so long, then perhaps it was all the proof I needed that neither Heaven nor Hell wished to permit me entry. I could not die. Unless...

Oh God.

The irony.

It was nauseating.


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about being a ghost was how little difference it made. Of course, at first I had raved. I had wailed. I destroyed and carried on like the mad restless spirit that I was, cursing every divine being I knew the name of for denying me peace even in death. However, with time, I found the fire slowly ebbed away. The lower levels were so cut off from the world above that I was able to carry on my work as though nothing of any consequence had happened at all.

The intruders persisted as time passed. I began to realize that, solid as I may have seemed to myself, I was nearly entirely immaterial to the outsiders. I suppose I should have expected something of the like, having been the subject of ghost stories before, but nonetheless it came as a mild surprise, and I was not fully prepared for the surrealness of it.

I found myself losing track of time if I was not careful. It seemed that without outside contact, my sense of time became even more erratic than it had been in life. When the upper level was breeched, I now made a point of discerning the year before driving the intruders away. More than once I had emerged from what seemed only a week-long rest to find that nearly a decade had passed by. Sometimes I missed intruders altogether, as was the case when I surfaced to find the majority of my furniture (now rather smashed due to my initial fits) had been removed. As doors and walls seemed to prove little obstacle to me anymore, I took care after that to make sure that the trap door in the wine cellar was properly barred from the inside and concealed in the dust, shutting off the lower levels from the surface indefinitely.

It soon came to my attention that the world above was taking notice of the house. The upper floor that was once an inconspicuous dwelling on a common street was now seen as a living antique, a piece of history to be polished and flaunted to the masses. I knew there was something very wrong when the intruders became more frequent, and it didn't take long for me to realize just what was happening.

He came by often. He was a young, rather stupid looking young man with too much macasser oil in his hair. He dressed absurdly in what I took to be 'the latest fashions', further proving that those with money are often all too willing to sacrifice their dignity and decency for the sake of status. He frequently brought in carpenters and repairmen to assess the damage, all the while chattering in an ear-grating tone that could have made even La Carlotta cringe. He was an idiot. And he had bought my house.

The mere thought made me want to vomit, something that I was fairly certain I was no longer capable of. But much as I wanted to expel him quite violently from the land of the living, I quickly found that there were indeed downsides to being immaterial. The idiot was oblivious to my shouted threats and curses, and seemed completely incapable of comprehending them even if he had not been. My attempts to forcibly remove him proved in vain, and on the few occasions when I made to follow him from the house, I found my path blocked by an invisible and unrelenting barrier. The full maddening horror of my situation slowly began to sink in: Once again, I was trapped. My castle had become my cage.

To my enormous relief the blabbering idiot, M. Cyril, never intended to take up residence in the house. Unfortunately, new tenants were indeed inevitable.

From what I was able to gather, the first few moved in during August of 1951. From what I could tell, they were newlyweds, a concept I did not welcome. Their dialogue in the presence of the hired movers was nauseating enough, to say nothing of what followed once they were alone. It didn't take me long to decide that they would have to go.

It was slow work at first. Without much extensive contact with the outside world, I hadn't been able to properly experiment with my newfound spiritual capabilities. Of course, I had my old tricks, my usual devices, but now new problems arose. While I myself may have been able to pass through walls and doors by means of simple concentration, I was unable to bring objects with me. Seeing as I had made every effort to permanently seal off the lower levels, this posed a rather significant problem.

As it was, I found that objects themselves had become rather more difficult to use. More than once, while trying to distract myself from the noises coming from above, I had picked up my violin only to feel as though I had hefted a cello onto my shoulder. Even composing, which had served to ease my nerves for so long, seemed to become difficult after long periods of time. And so, with my personal sanctuaries slowly waning away, I turned my attention to the tenants.

I started small, employing some of the tactics I had used in the opera house to frighten stagehands and ballet rats away from my more frequented areas. I opened or shut doors at night and misplaced objects when they turned their backs. Over time I found that through extreme concentration I was able to make myself audible to them, and so set about ruining their more romantic endeavors with wild screams and shrieks. It didn't take long for the wife to become anxious and jumpy, and I used this to my best advantage. I made a point of slamming cupboards and shuffling papers while she was home alone. The husband proved to be more difficult to deal with, though after managing to make myself visible for a brief moment over his side of the bed, the couple didn't seem to waste much time in moving out.

Of course, this wasn't the end of my unwanted guests. New lodgers came and went, each seemingly quicker than the last. I made certain of that.

I was rarely violent; I held no personal grudge against them. I simply didn't want them underfoot. It wasn't as if I could have done much anyway, for on the few occasions when I was moved to violence, I found that the effects were significantly less severe than I had hoped. Perhaps thankfully, I could no longer kill. I admit I tried it once with one of my less favored guests, an obnoxious adolescent who was constantly wreaking havoc on the antiqued walls with cans of pressurized paint, but found myself capable of strangling him only to the point of unconsciousness. Likewise, any other physical damage done to him disappeared by the next day. In a way, I suppose it was a blessing. I was now incapable of repeating the more heinous crimes of my life.

As the years passed, I became vaguely familiar with the changing technology that accompanied the intrusive lodgers. While some were, indeed, marvelous, I found far more of them to be immensely irritating. I quickly grew to despise the vacuum cleaner. The television, while intriguing at first, also became an annoyance over time. And I feel absolutely no shame in what I did to the electric guitar belonging to my would-be strangling victim. He eventually moved out, due in part to the incident, and I was rather relieved to have the house return to its mercifully empty state for what must have been a span of several years at least. Now that I was more fully aware of my state and the world around me, I tried to keep better track of the time that passed. After a long period of silence, I actually began to wonder if I might, at last, have the house back to myself. Cyril certainly seemed in no hurry to rent it out again, perhaps due to the many accounts of odd activity left by previous tenants.

In hindsight, I suppose it was rather stupid of me to think it could last.

From what I gathered, the new arrival's name was Ivy. Fitting, as she wasted no time in creeping over the whole of the house, leaving her clutter of odd possessions in her wake. It took her barely a week to fill the house with her many boxes of books and rusted junk, and more and more I found myself cursing my inability to give audible commentary on her lack of organizational skills. Still, she was better behaved than some of the previous tenants, and I found that I could let most of her irritating habits slide…for now.

Admittedly I became mildly uneasy when she began to fill the shelves of the small drawing room with bottles of oil and jars of herbs, but somehow, even as I watched her assemble an altar and ritual circle, I got the feeling that I need not fear for my existence. She seemed fully incapable of noticing me, even with the aid of her crafts. I watched her sit within her casting circle, lighting candles and burning plants and scraps of paper with prayers or dreams scrawled on them in an untidy cursive hand, but she never seemed to be aware of my presence. After several days of this, I began to gain the impression that, though she had obviously done her research in the field of her craft, she was not especially good at it. I felt the energy of the room crackle with frustration after nearly a week of her meditations and burned herbs left her in much the same place as when she started, and watched her burn herself as she angrily pinched out her candles. Her attempts at becoming more sensitive to the "other side" seemed to be in vain, and so I relaxed slightly.

It wasn't until she began cluttering what had once been a sitting room with large amounts of leather, paint, and face moulds that I became seriously agitated. I could NOT occupy the same space as a masque maker. The irony was simply too horrific. However, as she was relatively quiet and did not seem to be actively destroying any part of the house, I took to avoiding the upper levels and withdrew once again to my conservatory in the catacombs. I suspect I would have lost track of time once more, surfacing some years later to find a different inhabitant in the house, had the trapdoor not broken.

I was in my conservatory when the barrier that guarded my underground haven was breached. My revision of one of my older and more embarrassing sonatas was interrupted by an echoing crash, accompanied by a scream that was cut disturbingly short. Several heavy thuds followed quickly after, then all was silent. I was already at the base of the staircase by the time the sounds ceased; among my newfound abilities, I discovered that I seemed to move at an alarmingly quick pace when the need arose. Indeed, the sounds had barely registered in the back of my mind before I found myself surveying the damage.

I did not notice her at first. I saw the mess of books and cardboard boxes and assumed that the trapdoor had simply collapsed under the weight of her still-unorganized belongings. It wasn't until I remembered the scream that I noticed her still form on the landing.

For a moment I thought she was dead. She had obviously taken a rather hard fall, and judging from her splayed limbs she hadn't regained any sort of footing on the way down. Her forehead was already turning an unhealthy shade of violet, with an inch-long gash along her hairline that was starting to drip onto the dusty floor. I stood for a moment, watching. I did not want to stand by as she died, though simultaneously, I hadn't the faintest idea of what to do with her. I was finally brought back to my senses as she stirred, eyelids fluttering open slightly. For an instant I could have sworn that her gaze met mine, though her eyes were unfocused and barely a second had passed before they once more rolled back in their sockets. Almost automatically I crouched next to her, drawing a handkerchief from my waistcoat to clean the blood away from her face. Her brow creased slightly and she tried once more to open her eyes, though she seemed to be slipping too quickly into a state of full unconsciousness to succeed in doing so. Numbly, I lifted her from the floor and began to carry her up the stairs to the house that she still believed to be hers.

By the time we reached the parlor, she seemed to once again be regaining some form of consciousness. I laid her on the couch and once more pressed my handkerchief to her forehead. She winced slightly and reached up to touch the spot, and I flinched backwards out of instinct. My head cleared as she began to move again, and I turned to leave as she reached for the telephone, murmuring in confusion. I lingered just below the broken remains of the trapdoor just long enough to hear the approaching sirens, then withdrew once more to the secluded lower levels.


	3. Chapter 3

"Cree! Hi. Listen… No, no. I'm fine. They let me head home. Yeah, I'm a little sore, but I'll manage. Listen. There is something in my house…I don't know what, or who, but... No, I'm fine. Really, I am. Hey, I've never called YOU crazy. Okay, fine. See you in a bit."

I hung up the phone with a slight sigh, resisting the urge to reach up and rub the sore spot on my head. It wasn't the first time I'd had stitches, but I still preferred not to think about the fact that I'd literally just had my head sewn back together. I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy now in the house. I didn't necessarily feel threatened, but it was well past midnight by now, and everything was disturbingly quiet.

Ah, the joys of living alone.

Cree and I had been friends since high school. We were both just odd enough to stand out from our peers slightly, and though we had both attended different universities, we'd managed to keep in touch. Cree was pretty much the only person who knew the extent of my occult practices. She and I had sort of gotten into it together, though she was much better at it than I was. She had been seeing and hearing spirits since a young age, while I had the psychic awareness of a hammer. I knew there was something in this house, but I needed her help to figure out just what it was.

It took a little less than a half-hour for her to show up, and I jumped slightly when the doorbell finally rang.

"What took you?" I asked, opening the door to let her in and not batting an eye at her mud-covered clothes. Knowing her, she'd probably found someplace to go hiking and had forgotten to change.

"Hey, this neighborhood is a labyrinth at night." She said, "And I'm still getting used to French traffic laws. Now let me see." She took my arm sternly and leaned in to inspect my forehead. It wasn't a pretty sight, I knew for a fact, but I shooed her away.

"I'm fine, really. They already checked for anything serious."

"Hmm. I'm sure." She said, obviously not convinced, "What's with the music?"

"Classical mix." I sighed, "I was antsy. I couldn't just sit in the quiet." She nodded slightly, and started to take a look around some of the other rooms.

"Well, now I guess you know why you got such a good deal on this place. Rotten floorboards and ghosts." She mused, "Jesus, do you have every light in the house turned on?"

"I was antsy." I growled again. She smirked.

"Where'd you bust through the floor?" She asked, turning a bit more serious. I nodded and led her to the small back room that I had been using for storage. I had been avoiding it, to be honest, and so it was dark. I flipped the lights on and started slightly.

"Well that's interesting." Cree said, staring from over my shoulder. I nodded numbly. Although the floor was still in a rather messy state from caving in, all of my books had been stacked at the edge of the hole. Cree went forward to inspect things further.

"Careful," I said, "The floor might collapse again."  
"Nah." She said, inspecting the edges of the hole, "This is the only hollow spot in the floor. It's a passageway."

"Yeah, I kinda gathered that when I fell down a flight of stairs." I snarked. She glared at me. I came up next to her, looking down at the hole.

"Are those all of your books?" She asked. I checked, and found that they were not only all present, but they seemed to have been alphabetized.

"Tell me exactly what happened." Cree said, sitting back on the floorboards. I blinked for a moment.

"I don't remember much, to be honest." I said, "I was going through a box, and the floor gave way, and I hit my head." I chewed my lip; "The rest is kinda fuzzy until After the EMS drugs wore off."

"You don't remember anything else?"

"Not for sure. I was too out-of-it" I sighed, "But…" I trailed off, and shook my head. I'd already nearly cracked my skull open. I didn't need to be sharing my concussed hallucinations.

"Tell me." Cree said sternly, not having any of it.

"I..." I struggled, trying to find a way to say it that didn't make me seem completely insane, "Something… carried me to the couch. I think." Cree's face didn't change. She just kept watching me. "I don't know." I went on, "One minute I was on the floor and the next I was in the living room."

Cree got up and headed for the door. I scrambled slightly to follow her, still uneasy in the storage room. We went back out to the living room, and she bent to inspect the couch.

"Damn, girl, you bled all over the place." She mused.

"I know. Not looking forward to cleaning the upholstery." I sighed. Cree stood up, pulling something from between two of the couch cushions. It was a handkerchief, made of simple—though nice—white cloth that looked to have yellowed faintly with age and was edged in black. It showed signs of having been neatly folded for quite some time, and at the joining of the creases in the middle were several fresh brown stains, presumably from my blood.

"This look familiar to you at all?" She asked, holding it up. I blinked for a moment before shaking my head.

"Cree, I honestly don't remember anything" I sighed, "I was out-of-it." I was starting to wish I'd waited until morning to call her in. My head was starting to hurt again, and I could just feel my body turning all sorts of colors from my fall down the stairs. She frowned slightly and glanced at her watch.

"How long have you been up?" She asked.

"Not including my little mid-afternoon blackout? Since nine." Now that I didn't have the anxiety of being alone in the house, I was fading fast, and had to stifle a yawn. "Why? What time is it?"

"Four a.m." She answered flatly, "Let's just pick this up in the morning, alright?"  
"Technically, it IS the morning…"

"Shut up."

As tired as I was, I still found it difficult to get to sleep. My body was aching, and a fresh headache was grating against my brain. I tried to relax despite the pain, but after nearly an hour of tossing and turning in an effort to find a comfortable sleeping position I resigned to the fact that sleep was unlikely. I decided it would be in my best interests to seek the aid of ibuprofen. I opened my eyes as started in bed as I saw the shadow of a tall figure leaning over me. I gave a startled yell and reached blindly for the light, but by the time I managed to fully awaken, the image was gone. I stared around the room in shock for several moments before the bedroom door opened, nearly evoking another yell from me. Cree leaned inside, giving me a questioning glance.

"Dream." I said shortly, rubbing my face. I forgot momentarily about my stitches and bruised forehead, and unceremoniously raked the back of my hand across my brow. "Ah, shit…" I groaned, wincing. I checked my hand and saw a bit of blood smeared across my knuckles.

"you sure you're okay?" Cree asked, watching me as I got up and headed to the bathroom that joined to my room.

"I'm fine. Go back to bed." I huffed. She glared at me, but a moment later I heard the door close and the creak of the hallway floorboards. I checked my forehead in the mirror, and was relieved to find that I had not torn out any stitches. I popped a few ibuprofens to help with the lingering ache and stood for a moment looking at the damage in the mirror. The gash would heal. Even if it scarred, my hair would likely cover it up. In the meantime, I had to deal with a rather large purple splotch across my forehead that ached every time I moved my eyebrows. I sighed and made my way back to the bedroom. I took a scarf from my dresser and tied it around my head. It probably wouldn't do much to help my headache, but at least it might keep me from bleeding all over my pillowcase.

As bad as it was, being covered in bruises and sporting fresh stitches on my scalp, I couldn't help but feel a bit relieved. Things had gone surprisingly smoothly, considering that it was my first experience in a foreign hospital. Especially factoring in that my French was not exactly perfect. I had tried my best to become fluent by the time I made the move to Paris, but I still struggled now and then. Languages had never come easily to me. I could barely manage to say the right thing in my native tongue, let alone another one. And though I spent the majority of the time doped up on hospital painkillers, I think it went rather well. I woke up with all my limbs, at least. Even if they were rather badly bruised.

I gingerly climbed into bed, feeling my body protest against any sort of movement. I honestly didn't feel much like sleeping after being knocked out for most of the day. It was nearing six in the morning, and I could hear the sounds of people starting to go about their daily routines. Even though this part of town was relatively quiet, the walls of the old house were thin, and even the smallest sound seemed to carry for miles in the quiet of the early morning. I stared absently at the window, watching the dim grey light creep in around the edges of the curtains. I thought again about the books at the edge of the passageway, and the brief image I had seen of the shadow leaning over me, and I shuddered. It might not have scared me outright, but there was a certain eeriness to it that made me uncomfortable.

Cree was still asleep on the couch when I made my way to the kitchen. I wasn't surprised. She wasn't the one who had fallen down a flight of stairs. I heard her start to stir as I went about making a pot of tea. She shuffled in behind me as I took some mugs down from the cupboard, and I heard her snort slightly at the scarf I still had tied around my head.

"Did you even sleep?" She asked groggily, wiping her glasses on the corner of her shirt. I shook my head.

"I waited until sunup at least. Give me some credit. Besides, I got plenty of sleep yesterday whether I wanted it or not."

She snorted again and shook her head. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight." I said, "I waited as long as I could. It was rather boring, you know." I started the kettle and tore open a pair of teabags for us. Cree eyed my now mildly mussed headscarf, and I reached back to untie it. No sense in wearing it now that I was up...

"I want to go check out that passageway today." I announced, watching her closely. She had to have seen something. She was more sensitive than I was. As if sensing my thoughts, she remained relatively stoic and gave a small shrug.

"Whatever, man." She said, "Just don't die.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Updates will be very slow in the coming months... I'm back at school now, and all of my "fun" projects must be moved to the backburner. Apologies. -Ninja

Erik

Though muffled by the distance between the upper level and my study, I could hear the telltale sounds of movement in the house above me, and knew that it must be sometime around midmorning. The clock I had kept on the mantle had long since stopped working, and I was rather unable to pick up the necessary supplies to fix it, but I had ascertained that the new tenant tended to rise roughly around nine o'clock. I thought nothing of it and shifted slightly on the couch. It had taken most of the evening and several hours into the night, but I had managed to block off the doorway to my conservatory with a rather large bookshelf. Unfortunately, it seemed to have taken most of my energy to do so. I suspected I would pay some sort of price for managing to carry the girl upstairs, and now I lay motionless and immaterial on a couch that I suspected had become home to several mice. For several hours I had languished in an indescribable tiredness, longing for sleep that I felt I was no longer capable of. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, determined to distract myself from this paradoxically restless exhaustion, I chanced a journey to the upper levels with the intention of retrieving my handkerchief. Unfortunately, not only was it no longer on the couch, but its place had been taken by what appeared to be some mud-spattered vagabond that had been allowed into the house. Not discouraged, I attempted to check the tenant's bedroom for the handkerchief, but no sooner had I entered the room than she started awake with a cry. I cannot say why exactly it unnerved me, but I decided then to wait until the house was empty to resume my search. In the meantime, I would stay behind my improvised barrier.

As I lay catatonic on the couch, dully aware of the distant sound of water rushing through the pipes, I suddenly became aware of a presence in the room. I almost started as I opened my eyes to find the muddy vagabond from the upstairs living room standing over me, meeting my gaze directly.

Before I could even decide upon a proper reaction to this sudden development, he—he? I was almost certain they must be male–spoke, answering the first and most frantic question racing through my mind:

"Yes, I can see you." He unfolded his arms from their position over his upper ribcage to remove the heavy-framed spectacles he wore, and polished their lenses on a clean corner of his shirt as he continued, "See, hear, probably feel…It's complicated. Don't get used to it. You're still immaterial to the rest of the world. Most of the time, anyway. "

By now I had overcome the majority of my shock, and quickly stood from the dusty and faded couch. I had at least a foot's worth of height advantage on him, and found myself glad of it, given the sudden nature of his appearance.

"Get out." I hissed, speaking English aloud for what must have been the first time in at least half a century. He remained unfazed, and even chuckled slightly.

"Or what? Your traps and torture chamber are long gone. I suspect they're little more than rust by now." Once again, I found myself drowning in a mixture of rage and confusion, but before I could even ask, he spoke again, "I'm afraid they—and you, for that matter –are rather common knowledge nowadays, Erik. That's still what you're calling yourself isn't it? Erik?"

I moved to step closer, intending to drive him back towards the door that led to the upper levels, but found myself held back by an almost magnetic force. A heavy pressure, which I'm sure I would have considered suffocating if I still drew breath, forced me into fuming immobility. This sudden crushing heaviness seemed to radiate from the intruder, and as he stepped towards me, threatened to press me flat against the back wall.

"I came to give you fair warning." He said evenly, tone still unchanged from mildly condescending neutrality, "Your cover's about to be blown. She may not be able to see you, or hear you, or feel you, but she knows you're down here. And it won't take her long to figure out just who you are."

"What are you—"  
"Like I said, common knowledge nowadays. You weren't exactly subtle in your later years, your know." He stepped back, and as it subsided, I was finally able to identify the smothering, pulsating sensation caused by whatever invisible force he was emitting—pain.

For some unknown reason-perhaps an instinctive reflex triggered by the sudden ability to feel any sort of sensation-I found myself gasping for breath as the crushing force was drawn away, struggling to fill my immaterial lungs with air they no longer needed. Considering me sufficiently debilitated, the vagabond began to walk leisurely towards the door. The distant droning of the pipes ceased abruptly as the water was shut off upstairs.

"I'll be back shortly." The intruder said, "This has been a warning. I know the things you've done, Erik. You touch her, and there will be trouble." He clambered over my improvised barrier with little difficulty, and was gone. Alone again, I allowed myself to lean on the back of a dilapidated armchair for a moment to catch my nonexistent breath, the vagabond's words still spinning through my mind.

"You weren't exactly subtle in your later years, you know."

What on earth…


End file.
